Sunday, March 04, 2012

Missing Peace: A New Intifada in the Making?

Palestinian incitement against Israel has increased ever since the PA chose to obtain statehood via unilateral moves and opted for a reconciliation pact with Hamas instead of serious negotiations with Israel.

The latest example of PA incitement was the reaction of PA leaders Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayad to an IDF raid in Ramallah last week in which two pirate TV stations were closed down.

Fayad called the raid an “act of piracy” while Abbas said that the raid constituted a “flagrant assault on the freedom of expression and media”.

Of course the PA leaders knew very well that they received numerous Israeli requests to cease the broadcasting of both stations because they interrupted legal TV broadcasting.

They also knew about the provisions in the Oslo 2 accord of September 28, 1995 which contains a list of six approved TV stations in Annex III. Both Ramallah stations are not on that list.

Incidents

As a direct result of this incitement campaign the number of incidents in which Palestinian Arabs attacked Israeli targets has increased significantly over the past few weeks.

Most incidents took place in the old city of Jerusalem, where Muslims have been throwing stones at tourists visiting the Temple Mount and the Western Wall. On Friday February 24 Israeli security forces finally raided the Temple Mount, which resulted in 11 Israeli casualties.

Later, serious rioting broke out in the Palestinian village A-Ram next to Jerusalem, One Palestinian was killed during the ensuing clashes between the IDF and Palestinian rioters. Last Monday A-Ram was the scene of riots again.

In the West Bank too there has been an increase of rock throwing at Israeli buses and cars. There have also been reports of the throwing of Molotov cocktails at IDF forces. On Monday a bomb exploded near the security fence in the Ramallah area.

Lynch attempts

At the end of February an Israeli woman was stoned in her car while she was driving to her home in Carmei Tzur, close to Gush Etzion.

This incident followed an earlier apparent lynch attempt of a Jewish woman in the same area. This incident took place when the woman’s car broke down. Shortly afterwards she found herself surrounded by Palestinian Arabs who allegedly threatened her. Passing Israeli civilians rescued her from the scene. This incident was not reported by the media.

Another lynch attempt occurred in the Israeli city of Haifa last Saturday. Two IDF soldiers, who were on leave from the army, were attacked by a crowd of Israeli Arabs close to Haifa’s Rambam hospital.
They had to be rescued by security guards who were in the area of the attack.

Last Sunday the Israeli media published shocking details about this accident. It seems that the attackers acted out of anti-Semitic motives apparent when they carved the words ‘You Dog’ on the head of one of the soldiers.

In southern Israel, the number of rocket attacks have also increased lately. Saturday February 25 at least 7 Kassam and Grad rockets were fired into Israel from Gaza. The Israeli Air Force responded by attacking Hamas targets.

The rocket fire did not abate however, this Saturday 5 rockets landed in southern Israel.
The increase in attacks from Gaza came after Hamas publishedpropaganda about the El Aksa mosque.

El Aksa

The false claim that the El Aksa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem is in danger has always been used to ignite Arab violence and uprisings. Already in the early twentieth century, the same myth was used to mobilize the Arab masses against the Jews, as in the massacre of the Jewish community in Hebron in 1929.
PA leader Arafat used the same tactic to start the second Intifada after a visit to the Temple Mount by former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Israel had coordinated this visit with the PA beforehand. But Arafat and Fatah leader Marwan Bargoutti used Sharon’s visit to ignite the terror campaign that resulted in thousands of deaths and the destruction of the Palestinian economy.

Missing Peace researcher Sharon Shaked, who monitors the Arab media, last week reported that most reports on this topic are distorted by the Arab media.

Thus, an incident where Muslims threw stones at visitors at the Temple Mount and the Western Wall a week ago, was presented as the “storming of the El-Aksa Mosque by the Zionist Occupation Army”.

Rhetoric

PA leaders have substantially increased their rhetoric against Israel and are now openly calling for a third Intifada.

PA president Mahmoud Abbas did not join the calls for a new Intifada. However, in Doha during a conference about the ‘defense’ of Jerusalem he gave a highly inflammator speech in which he used the libel that Israel is conducting ethnic cleansing of the Arabs in East Jerusalem.

Of course this is a lie. Just yesterday the Jerusalem Municipalty published a plan that aims to improve the lives of the Arabs in East Jerusalem significantly.

The current propaganda campaign can not be dissociated from the organization of a ‘Global March on Jerusalem’, which aims at the ‘liberation’ of Al-Quds (Jerusalem) and is scheduled for the end of March. A coalition of Islamists and pro-Western Palestinian organizations has been preparing this march for months. On Sunday February 26, activists from 60 countries met in Amman in order to discuss preparations.

Iran links

The British monitor organization CIF Watchpublished an article last week in which it uncovered the links between the organization of this march and Iran / Hizbollah.

Iran has a direct interest in a third intifada against Israel especially at this time, as it would distract attention from the Iranian nuclear program. It also would seriously impede a possible Israeli military action against the program.

Last year Iran and her partners tried to provoke Israel with similar organized demonstrations on Israel’s northern border.

Since then the situation has changed. The PA has become radicalized under the influence of the Islamist revolutions that are sweeping the Middle East and the Iranian axis is under threat in Syria and Lebanon.
Under these circumstances the current attempt to ignite an uprising focused on Jerusalem could easily end in a new regional war.

About Me

When I am not blogging at Daled Amos, I am sharing articles and the great posts of others on my account on Google Plus.

I write about the Middle East in general and about Israel in particular -- especially about issues affecting Israel in the Middle East and how Israel is impacted by policy in the current Obama administration.